"Ugliness and Beauty" from The Songs of Béranger 1829

"Ugliness and Beauty" is an engraving by Tony Johannot, created as part of The Songs of Béranger, a collection of works that often critiqued French society and politics. Johannot’s composition invites us to consider how beauty and ugliness intertwine in the human experience. At the center, a couple stands beside a coffin, their expressions a mix of grief and tenderness. They are framed by symbols of both beauty—an angelic figure, floral garlands—and ugliness— a looming, shadowy figure and discarded royal regalia. The piece challenges conventional notions of beauty, suggesting that it can coexist with the grotesque and the sorrowful. In post-revolutionary France, where the dreams of liberty, equality, and fraternity had given way to a new order, such imagery served as a potent commentary on the shifting values and realities of French society. Johannot asks us to consider the beauty in moments of grief and the ugliness that can lurk beneath the surface of power and authority. The emotional complexity of the image invites us to reflect on our own experiences of love, loss, and the search for meaning in a world filled with contradictions.